The parents of the camera assistant who was hit by a speeding train and killed while shooting Allman Brothers biopic Midnight Rider earlier this year (14) have settled their civil lawsuit against the producers of the film. Richard and Elizabeth Jones have reached confidential agreements with many of the defendants, including writer/producer Jody Savin and director Randall Miller.
Their daughter Sarah lost her life in a freak accident on the set of the film in rural Georgia, while she was attempting to shoot footage from a trestle in Wayne County.
Executive producers Jay Sedrish and Don Mandrik and location manager Charles Baxter have also reached a settlement with the grieving parents.
Their suit originally listed Gregg Allman, whose memoirs inspired the film, but his name was dropped from the case in October (14).
Filming was halted immediately after the tragedy and William Hurt, who was cast as Gregg Allman in the movie, has since quit the project.
Miller, Savin and Sedrish are still facing involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespass charges. Their case is scheduled to go to trial in March (15). They each face 10 years in prison if found guilty.

YouTube/The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Just three weeks in production, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has raked in more than $15 million — this puts it ahead of the latest YA release The Giver as the eighth highest grossing property this month. But trouncing that Jeff Bridges/Brenton Thwaites travesty by nearly $3 million is only the second most noble of the Ice Bucket Challenge’s efforts. The movement is allotting nigh unparalleled funds toward the study of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, an illness known best as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.
The condition observes the weakening of the muscles in accordance with a degeneration of a specific portion of the spinal cord. As a result of ALS, those afflicted find difficulty speaking, swallowing, breathing, and moving altogether.
Though discovered in the 19th century and brought to infamy in the late 1930s in accordance with the suffering of beloved New York Yankee Lou Gehrig, ALS remains the most common motor neuron disease actively plaguing men and women today. While perhaps only a small measure in the fight against the illness, the Ice Bucket Challenge is allowing for tremendous progress in the collection of funds devoted to the defeat of such a longstanding travesty.
YouTube/JustinTimberlake
As is inevitable with any cause célèbre or public movement, we have witnesses no small share of backlash against the Challenge; critics decry the endeavor as a bandwagon trend and a waste of time that offers no real benefit to the cause in question. As far as the latter goes, the $15 million and counting — a sum made possible thanks in large part to the spirited, sportsmanly brand with which the Ice Bucket Challenge was designed — would beg to differ. Nevertheless, we find those with a sour taste for the charitable phenomenon. Not to mention those who simply don’t want to pour a bunch of cold water over their heads. But if you find yourself a culprit of this mindset, maybe take a look at the pedigree of the company you’d be joining were you to hop aboard for this particularly frigid mitzvah.
So what pop culture accomplishments can be attributed to the community of water-logged philanthropists?
5 ACADEMY AWARDS Between Steven Spielberg (3), Russell Crowe (1), and Oprah (a Humanitarian Oscar).
60 EMMYSBetween Oprah (13 Daytime Emmys and 2 Primetime Emmys), Steven Spielberg (11), Meredith Vieira (4 News/Documentary Emmys and 3 Daytime Emmys), Jimmy Fallon (4), Justin Timberlake (4), J.J. Abrams (3), Conan O'Brien (3), Jim Parsons (3), Ricky Gervais (2), William Shatner (2), Harry Connick Jr. (2), Rachel Maddow (1), Ryan Seacrest (1), Nathan Fillion (1 Daytime Emmy), and Topher Grace (1 Daytime Emmy).
62 GRAMMYSJustin Timberlake (9), Taylor Swift (7), Carrie Underwood (6), Lady Gaga (5), Mackelmore (4), Lil Wayne (4), Keith Urban (4), Weird Al Yankovic (3), Gwen Stefani (3), Ludacris (3), Brad Paisley (3), Adam Levine (3), Harry Connick Jr (3), Jason Mraz (2), Drake (1), Jimmy Fallon (1), and Calvin Harris (1).
10 GOLDEN GLOBESSteven Spielberg (7), Russell Crowe (1), William Shatner (1), and Don Johnson (1).

Warner Bros. Pictures via Everett Collection
Here’s the sole compliment I will pay Into the Storm: it let’s you know right away what you’re getting into. The very first minute of the movie introduces fans to the sort of grim, nihilistic, aesthetically repugnant and substantially barren horror that maintains throughout the hour and a half to follow, saving only the extent of its special effects for later… and trust me, it’s not worth the wait.
While we’ve been debating the toxicity of “destruction porn” since before Man of Steel, but surely we can point to entries in the disaster genre that don’t feel like soul-mincing works of large scale snuff — we can point to this summer’s Godzilla, for instance. But for every thematically dense project like the aforesaid, we have a half-dozen Into the Storms: movies that, somehow, pass off the most mangled constructions of mindless, banal, uninspired, grotesque unpleasantness as entertainment.
Warner Bros. Pictures via Everett Collection
We are asked to believe that there are characters in this movie: Richard Armitage insists that he’s a father of two, a disappointingly joke-free Matt Walsh tells us that he’s a storm chaser and a documentarian, and Sarah Wayne Callies introduces herself as a meteorologist of some kind. But we never get more than a résumé recitation from each character; we never earn an understanding of what any of them would do when faced with mortal danger, what they would think about, who they would want to be with.
So, really, we’re not given much of a story. Sure, there are tidbits mentioned about Armitage’s strained relationship with his two sons (Max Deacon and Nathan Kress), about Walsh’s obsessive devotion to his work, about Callies’ desire to make it home to her five-year-old daughter (ugh, the pandering). But these don’t feel like character beats, but rather like bits of data. Nothing within these characters exists beyond what we are explicitly told about them. As such, they wind up feeling less like people to whom we’re anchored and more like chunks of debris being tossed around between tornadoes.
And that’s what’s so ugly, unenjoyable, and dangerous about this movie: it’s dehumanizing. It prefers the thrills of demolition to the pathos inherent in accessing what this demolition might be doing to real people. But even in its misguided mission does Into the Storm fail: it’s not thrilling. Not fun. Not cool to look at. It is, in all conceivable ways, a disaster.
.5/5
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No two elements in Hollywood make more sense together than Ridley Scott and epic, sprawling period dramas. After all, who better to direct an action packed, intensely dramatic, incredibly serious film about Moses leading the Jews out of slavery in Egypt than the man who made Gladiator and Black Hawk Down? Unfortunately, that's about the only thing that seems to make any sense about his latest film, Exodus: Gods and Kings, a movie that promises to live up to its poster. The first trailer for the epic sees Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton (who are Welsh and Australian, respectively) face off over the people of Egypt.
At least, that's what we think is going on. To be honest, we were a bit distracted by the sheer insanity of the trailer to really follow along with the plot. No matter how hard we tried to pay attention to the exposition that the dramatic voice-over was revealing or focus on the intensity of the torch-lit glares, there would be something else that drew our attention and made us stop everything we were doing in order to exclaim "Wait, what?!" In a desperate attempt to make sense of everything that's going on in Exodus: Gods and Kings, we've rounded up all of the most surprising, confusing and downright insane moments in the trailer.
0:13 – Christian Bale’s Impeccably Trimmed Facial Hair Was ancient Egypt particularly well known for its barbers? Because the angles on that goatee are distractingly perfect. Surely Moses has more important things to deal with than making sure that is facial hair looks pristine at all times... like, say, freeing the slaves? Bale doesn't even show up to the Oscars this well groomed.
0: 19 – Joel Edgerton’s Painted-On Eyebrows Was the makeup team worried that audiences wouldn’t be able to find Edgerton’s eyes after he shaved his head? Did they really think we needed two clear arrows pointing at them at all times, so that we can better appreciate the intensity of his gaze? Did they confuse old hieroglyphs for an accurate representation of what people’s eyebrows looked like then, and attempt to match his makeup to a cave wall?
0:24 – What Accent Is That Supposed to Be? It’s clearly an attempt at the standard “British gravitas” that is a fundamental requirement of any epic period piece, but then towards the end of the line, it takes a strange detour into what we can only assume is an attempt at Egyptian, but which really sounds more like someone from a vaguely European country speaking with his mouth full.
0:27 – Hang on, Was There an Epic Battle in the Original Story?There was definitely fire, we know that, but as far as we remembered it came from a burning bush. Was there this much swordplay in the Bible? Did Ridley Scott just grow up reading a different version of the story or was this all in there, just buried between the lines? Maybe we’ve all been wrong this whole time…
20th Century Fox Film
0:31 – Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton Are in Two Completely Different Movies Edgerton clearly thinks he’s starring in a shot-for-shot remake of a classic Hollywood epic, complete with period-accurate – well, for the 1950s and ‘60s, at least – makeup and the kind of voice that proclaims, “I am a Serious Actor. Respect Me.” Whereas Bale is clearly playing off-duty Bruce Wayne, who has been hanging out in his desert mansion for a while in order to build up his base tan.
0:41 – Is Someone Casting a Spell on that Baby? Why else would you wave your hands over its head? What did this baby do to warrant a curse like that? It didn’t harm anyone, it’s just a baby. What movie do you think this is, Maleficent? Also, why would you wake up a sleeping baby? It probably just got to sleep and now it’s going to be up all night, which means someone’s going to be exhausted when they show up for battle tomorrow. Nobody wants sleepy soldiers.
1:06 – Wait, Sigourney Weaver Is in This? Wow, they didn’t even try to cast anyone who looks like they could actually be from this region, did they? Also, is she playing someone’s mother? Because Sigourney Weaver is far too young to play either Christian Bale or Joel Edgerton’s mother, and yet here she is, looking authoritative and resplendent, like she’s going to yell at Moses and Ramses to stop fighting and clean up their wing of the palace, without even smudging her perfect eyeliner.
1:14 – Moses’ Casual Reveal of the Plagues About to Terrorize Egypt“Oh, hey Ramses. Don’t freak out or anything, but there’s something really terrifying headed your way, and I’m not gonna stop it or anything, but you’re basically screwed. No worries, though. I’m sure it will all work out fine. Well, it was good talking to you, hope the hail doesn’t knock you out. See you at the family reunion!”
1:22 – Christian Bale’s “Serious Archer” Face If you’re leading an army into battle against their greatest foe, the king who has held them captive for generations, you might want to find a facial expression that’s a bit more intimidating and inspiring than just opening your mouth as wide as you can and refusing to blink. You were Batman. You should have a perfect fighting face ready for any occasion.
1:30 – The Plainest Title Cards of All Time After a minute and a half of sweeping panoramas, epic battle scenes, stunning visual effects and a literal river of blood, the trailer fades out into the titles… which are just thin silver letters on a black background. Did they run out of money for titles thanks to the massive effects budget? If you’re going to wimp out on the titles, at least try and pick an interesting font. It’s advertising 101.
And we didn't even touch on the fact that Aaron Paul is playing Moses' second in command. Exodus: Gods and Kings opens in theaters on December 12.
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Disco stars Kc & The Sunshine Band are due to set sail with soul legend Gladys Knight as part of a big Caribbean concert cruise next year (15). The artists will be joined by the likes of Frankie Beverly, James Ingram, The Spinners and Ashford & Simpson's Valerie Simpson for The Soul Train Cruise, which will feature more than 30 concerts during the seven-day trip.
Fans will board the luxury Holland America Eurodam liner in Fort Lauderdale, Florida on 22 February (15) and travel through the Caribbean, with stops in Turks and Caicos, San Juan in Puerto Rico, St. Thomas and the Bahamas, before heading back to the U.S. on 1 March (15).
Singer Harry Wayne 'KC' Casey says, "Many times during the '70s we appeared on (popular variety show) Soul Train with Don Cornelius. I only wish he could still be here to share this magic moment we are going to have on the Soul Train Cruise.
"I'm looking forward to bringing our music alive once again, as we did so many times on the TV show."
They are the latest artists to unveil plans to hit the high seas this year (14) - Megadeth and Anthrax are teaming up with Motorhead for a heavy rock cruise in September (14), while Joan Osbourne, Emmylou Harris and Heart have joined forces for the Grammy Festival at Sea: Women Who Rock event in November (14).

Warner Bros. Pictures
Pioneered as a device to enhance the stakes of horror movies, found footage filmmaking has become a genre all its own. Far more prevalent in the past decade than ever before, the specific brand of cinematography is often mined for heightened realism and utilized as a means to bring the idea of documenting into the story in question. As Steven Quale, the latest director to take on found footage for his new tornado disaster picture Into the Storm, told Hollywood.com on a visit to his set, "The found footage genre, I think, is a new genre. A lot of people are getting into it now, and there’s different types of subgenres of found footage. [It] might even be ... first person narrative now instead of found footage." Told through the eyes and digital lenses of a family of three (father Richard Armitage and sons Nathan Kress and Max Deacon), a team of meteorologists (Matt Walsh and Sarah Wayne Callies), and a pair of storm-chasing adrenaline junkies (Kyle Davis and Jon Reep), the film banks on the unique opportunities of found footage cinema to deliver its high-intensity story.
Often, it can be difficult to "rationalize" the characters' use of cameras in found footage films.
Producer Todd Garner: "The problem with YouTube — and I don’t blame these people, but it generally is a lot of this: 'Oh my gosh, there’s a tornado! Here it comes! Oh s**t, run!' And [they] usually drop the camera, and you’re like, 'Aw, I almost saw it!' It’s ... close but not right there. So we have one guy whose obsession is to get into the eye ... And then everybody else, just because it’s a movie, is able to stay in it and see what is usually happening when people are running away."
Steven Quale: "There’s lots of cameras because things have changed a lot since the introduction of, say, The Blair Witch Project and found footage. Everybody has a camera! I mean, look at half the devices. Every phone has a camera on it, every camcorder, and there are security/surveillance cameras. The world is full of cameras. So what we have here is a high school graduation. Every parent has camcorders, so now suddenly you have hundreds if not thousands of viewpoints and points of view to actually film this graduation ceremony. Plus you have the professional crew, well it’s actually students doing it that are actually supposed to capture the graduation so now you suddenly have a legitimate, rational reason for all these cameras and because of the technology and the recent events you’re able to do more of that."
Nathan Kress: "The movie is set up, at least from our perspective, as we’re doing a time capsule for the town. So in a way I’m kind of taking it upon myself to document this event that’s going to undoubtedly change the entire course of everybody’s lives in Silverton. One of the other reasons is that the storm chasers kind of recruit me to be a supplemental camera guy and he offers to pay me, which is great for young Trey. So ... for a lot of the action they were able to justify me trying to document everything that was going on."
The role of the camera in found footage filmmaking is complex, as is the actor's relationship with her or her camera.
Richard Armitage: "Each camera becomes a character. There [are] times where my son isn’t in the scene, but his camera is, and I have to talk to him as if he’s there. But it’s a camera operator. So each camera becomes a character. Some of them are surveillance cameras, so you have to know very specifically that you don’t start talk to a surveillance camera like it’s a person. So it’s very unusual. I’ve never filmed like this before. There are no formal set ups, and the lighting is obviously [made] to look like it’s not lit. There’s no such thing as a close up unless Trey or Donnie is doing a punch zoom. But I don’t know what size the shots have been. I always know what lens we’re on whether it’s mid or tight. I’ve not asked that question because I think I actually don’t want to know in this instance because I want it to kind of be captured and found rather than having any control over how the performance is. Which is why it feels like there is no performance. That’s a good thing. It’s a different kind of work; it’s sort of über-naturalism. Although, at the same time, you build your relationship with your camera operator that you can create the illusion [and find the] moment, which does involve that kind of choreography with the camera. Otherwise they’re always on the back of your head as you run away."
Warner Bros. Pictures
Due to the different perspectives and cameras at play in Into the Storm, the look and style of the film varies throughout.
Steven Quale: "What’s interesting about [Into the Storm] is we definitely want to let the audience know that these are different cameras, different people, different styles of cameras ... Our story is very unique in the sense that it’s not just one person and one camera and that’s the whole story. Our film has three different things happening simultaneously. A group of high school kids ... have their own cameras, and one happens to be the head of the audio video club. So he’s really good with the camera so that makes his stuff better than, say, the average person. Then we have just a couple of local people who aren’t quite as good with the camera and that will be a little more sort of messy type of stuff. And then we have these professional storm chasers who are making a large format theatrical movie about tornados, so they are professional filmmakers with state of the art, high-resolution cameras. So their goal is to try to film the eye of the tornado, the shot that nobody has ever seen in this amazing cinematic manner. So because we have a group of a half dozen or so professional storm chasers who are professional camera people, we have a great opportunity to make it more cinematic and engaging. So my cinematic style will be reflected in those storm chasers because that’s kind of how I’d do that portion of it if I was and I’ve had years of documentary experience having co-directed Aliens of the Deep, the IMAX 3D documentary, I know exactly what those guys make that type of film. So I applied that experience thinking how these guys would act and relate to shooting in a tornado situation."
Todd Garner: "We’re using basically every kind of camera I’ve ever seen on a movie set, from flip phones to GoPros, to these cool Nikon cameras, to REDs, to every format. So I would imagine it’s going to look different. And the way he’s shooting each piece of it ... because the storm trackers have a different way of shooting than the two dips**ts with GoPros. It’s not like Cloverfield with one camera filming the whole thing; it’s many, many, many different cameras. So all of the different characters in the movie have a different shooting style."
Nathan Kress: "I’ve been doing a show on Nickelodeon for five and a half years [iCarly] where I was the camera guy, so I was able to use quite a bit of experience to actually help me out. Some of it’s been a little bit different because there’s been times where with muscle memory... I had been doing that show, and [they] would always tell me hold the camera lower because we don’t want to block your face when you’re on camera. With this, they realized that doesn’t look real, so I’ve had to relearn. Rather than holding it in places so that my face is above or below the camera, it has to be right there if I was actually shooting it. So it has helped and in some ways, [and] it has actually hindered because I’d been doing it for so long and was so in the groove of doing it a certain way."
Of course, there are dangers to the found footage genre...
Steven Quale: "What I was afraid of doing is... some found footage movies tend to ... make the camera so zoomy, so jerky, that it makes you sick, basically. There’s a different sensibility aesthetically for filming something that’s on TV with a small screen versus the large screen of cinema. And when you do the same things, it might look fine on your little monitor, but when you blow it up on the big cinematic screen... I have years and years of experience with large format. It makes you sick. It’s too much. So you have to find a fine balance between that to make it feel real and visceral but at the same time not get the audience sick. So we’ve done a lot of tests and I go up to the monitor and put my face right up to it to simulate what it’s like. I insist on seeing all the dailies projected on a big screen so we can fine tune that balance and make it work."
Todd Garner: "I know that the knock on found footage movies has been the shaky cam, but I’ve worked with directors who’ve shot worse shaky cam that’s not found footage. It doesn’t bother me if it’s done right. But I know that’s the knock on it. It’s too disorienting. [Quale has] been very specific about giving you the feeling and experience of being first person but [using] real cameramen who can actually get a good shot. He’s really being careful about making sure it’s a good shot but also not making it feel like it’s just big cranes."
Naturally, the Into the Storm crew did look back on a few found footage classics in conceiving the film.
Todd Garner: "What triggered [Into the Storm] was I’m fascinated by the found footage idea, or the first person camera footage idea, because I think it puts you in the driver’s seat of the movie like I hadn’t seen before. Originally I wanted to do a found footage alien movie, and then Battle: Los Angeles came out. So I was thinking about it and I think the first found footage I ever saw was either [tornadoes] or Bigfoot. And I’m not really ready to do my Bigfoot movie yet ... Cloverfield and Chronicle both, I think, did a good job of moving [the genre] outside. And I would even say Battle: LA, in a certain way, had that vibe of being a found footage movie ... I think it worked so well in the horror genre because it’s emotionally rooted in things that you see every day and can happen to you. And I think that’s why specifically Cloverfield and Battle: Los Angeles and this are in the same genre, because it’s an extraordinary thing happening in a personal space. It’s not like a found footage movie going to the moon... [but] there was one of those. This is happening in your hometown. Cloverfield, Battle: LA, and now this. So, for me, it’s more of an experiential thing than a genre thing."
Into the Storm hits theaters on August 8.
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HBO
After weeks of watching, re-watching, live-tweeting, recapping, analyzing, and debating, the fourth season of Game of Thrones has finally come to an end, leaving a void in both our hearts and our Twitter feeds. Once the fanfare and discussions about the shocking deaths and the major changes from the books finally die down, we will be faced with an unbearable winter without Westeros. How will we carry on without Dany and her dragons? How can we stay calm when we don’t know what’s happening with Tyrion? How will we survive the long months before we get new episodes?
Well, by watching TV of course. Game of Thrones may have ended, but there are plenty more shows with all of the fantasy, politics, blood and nudity that we have come to rely on David Benioff and D.B. Weiss for, and we don’t even have to wait until next year to enjoy them. We've run down all of the shows airing in 2014 that will help fill the Westeros-sized hole in your heart, and how long you have to wait to get your fix. And if that doesn't work, there's still several thousand pages of George R.R. Martin's writing available for you to read. That should help pass the time.
True Blood How Long We Have To Wait: One week until June 22. What It’s About: The seventh and final season of the Southern vampire drama picks up with most of the characters dead or seemingly dead, an outbreak of Hep-V terrorizing the vampire population and everyone gaining and losing characters quicker than alliances shift on Game of Thrones. How It Will Fill the Void: True Blood and Game of Thrones have two key elements in common: blood and nudity. Expect plenty of both in the upcoming season.Airs: Sundays at 9 PM on HBO.
Tyrant How Long We Have To Wait: A week until June 24.What It’s About: The second son of a dictator leader of a foreign country returns from a self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, and must deal with the conflicts that arise between the culture of his homeland and the US and his oppressive father. How It Will Fill the Void: If you’re looking for political intrigue, culture clashes, a struggle for power and a father/son dynamic reminiscent of Tywin and Tyrion Lannister, this is the show for you.Airs: Tuesdays at 10 PM on FX.
The Leftovers How Long We Have to Wait: Two weeks until June 29.What It’s About: Set two years after 2 percent of the population disappears in the rapture, the series follows the rest of the world as they struggle to understand what happened to their loved ones, and attempt to move forward with their lives. How It Will Fill the Void: Like the White Walkers, the Children, and everything Melisandre is doing with the Lord of the Light, The Leftovers centers on a strange, unexplained supernatural phenomenon, and explores the personal drama that results.Airs: Sundays at 10 PM on HBO.
The Strain How Long We Have to Wait: Four weeks until July 13.What It’s About: Created by Guillermo del Toro, The Strain is about a viral strain that turns people into horrifying, bloodsucking monsters that are terrorizing the population. It’s also based on a trilogy of books by Chuck Hogan, in case you’re all caught up on A Song of Ice and Fire. How It Will Fill the Void: It’s got horror, terror, suspense, excitement, supernatural elements and – we’re assuming – plenty of gore. Plus, it has Walder Frey himself, David Bradley, presumably on a mission to traumatize as many viewers as humanly possible.Airs: Sundays at 10 PM on FX.
Showtime
Masters of Sex How Long We Have to Wait: Four weeks until July 13.What It’s About: The pioneering work on human sexuality done by William Masters and Virginia Johnson in the 1950s. The second season will see Masters and Johnson grow closer, and the challenges it presents their personal and professional relationships. How It Will Fill the Void: All of the nudity and explicit sexual situations, but presented in a way that not only serves a narrative purpose and raises important questions about society and the human body, but also isn’t degrading towards women. What a novel concept!Airs: Sundays at 10 PM on Showtime.
Outlander How Long We Have to Wait: Two months until August 9.What It’s About: Based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon, the series follows Claire, a World War II nurse who is mysteriously sent back in time to the 1700s. There she is forced to marry Jaime Fraiser, a romantic and chivalrous Scottish soldier, and she is torn between two very different lives. How It Will Fill the Void: It’s a sweeping period epic that incorporates sci-fi, adventure, war, and romance that should help you move on from the tragic ending of Jon and Ygritte’s relationship.Airs: Saturdays at 9 PM on Starz.
Sleepy Hollow How Long We Have to Wait: Four months until September 22.What It’s About: The surprise hit of last year centers on Ichabod Crane, who is sent forward in time to 2014, where he solves supernatural crimes with Det. Abbie Mills, and the two of them attempt to stop the apocalypse. How It Will Fill the Void: Witty banter, well-matched partners, a supernatural threat, colorful characters, a spooky witch you should probably be wary of and some truly gruesome crimes – throw in a giant and it’s practically Game of Thrones’ fourth season.Airs: Mondays at 9 PM on Fox.
Gotham How Long We Have to Wait: Indeterminate, although it’s likely to premiere in September or October.What It’s About: Before Bruce Wayne grew up to be Batman, it was Det. Jim Gordon who cleaned up the crime and corruption on the streets of Gotham, even if that meant taking on some super villains of his own. How It Will Fill the Void: Like Ned Stark in King’s Landing, Jim Gordon is a noble man trying to bring justice to the murder, manipulation and scheming that runs amok in the city. Let’s hope he fares a bit better.Airs: Mondays at 8 PM on Fox.
Better Call Saul How Long We Have to Wait: Six months until November. What It’s About: A spinoff of Breaking Bad that focuses on Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman, a lawyer who will do anything to keep his operations running smoothly. How It Will Fill the Void: You’ll probably become addicted to it, just as you were to Breaking Bad, which will help pass the time until Game of Thrones returns. Airs: On AMC, although a night and time hasn’t been revealed yet.
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The Flaming Lips star Wayne Coyne has assured fans his on/off project with Kesha is on again following the pop star's rehab stint earlier this year (14). Coyne teamed up with the Tik Tok star last year (13) for the band's The Flaming Lips and Heady Fwends album, and the odd couple began working on new material for a joint album.
But Coyne abandoned the project in November (13), telling his Twitter followers that the album would never see the light of day.
Now, speaking to Billboard.com, the rocker admits he'd like to get back in the studio with Kesha - if she's allowed to record new material with him.
He says, "I think she’s in, like, a production deal, I guess... because when I do music with Kesha, we’re just doing music and I don’t really know all the levels of what’s allowable and what isn’t.
"I think sometimes when we’ve done some music together, I think she forgets that she’s limited to what she’s allowed to do and what she’s not allowed to do. I think she finds that a little bit too constricting for her.
"I think my relationship with Kesha is the same as it’s always been: 'When you wanna do something, let’s f**king get together and we’ll do it and we’ll figure something out'."
Meanwhile, Kesha is about to embark on a career as a TV talent show judge after her rehab stint at the beginning of 2014 - her new project Rising Star debuts in the U.S. next week (22Jun14).

20th Century Fox Film via Everett Collection
Consider the superhero movie sequel. With the millstone of the characters' origin stories removed from around the collective necks of the filmmakers, they are free to jump right into a rip-roaring premise with plenty of superhuman action bursting from the screen. Fans are eagerly awaiting X-Men: Days of Future Past for exactly that reason... we've already seen two different origin movies for the the mutants, so let's get on with the time-bending heroics.
Why, then, is it that so many superhero sequels don’t live up to their promise? More importantly, what it is about the ones that do that make them rise above the others? Let's take a look at what anyone making a superhero sequel after decade's worth of examples both good and bad.
Don't Waste Time Rehashing What We Already Know
Just trust that we saw the origin story movie. There's no need to tell us who the characters are and why they're important. Anyone that needs to know what's happening isn't the target audience anyway… and they can be brought up to speed by whatever friend dragged them along to the theater. If you really, really feel the need to catch everyone up then just do what Superman II did and stick a montage with the opening credits.
Start Fast
The awesome thing about being past the origin story is that we can get right into the action. Even if the new story is going to take a while to set up, don't lead off with that. Don't meander into things like Iron Man 2. Don't give us action that we don't fully understand like in Thor: The Dark World. The hero doesn't even have to be involved. Go right for the jugular like they did in X2: X-Men United, with Nightcrawler ransacking the White House, or Christopher Nolan's dual threats of setting up first the Joker in The Dark Knight and Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.
Find a Great Bad Guy
As Nolan showed, really any superhero sequel is going to live or die by the choice of the super-nemesis. By unleashing Heath Ledger's Joker in the second film, filmmakers didn't force audiences to wait for him while the story tried to get Bruce Wayne to the point of being Batman. Similarly, the first great superhero sequel, Superman II, did likewise by giving us Terence Stamp's awesome General Zod from the beginning to the end. Don't make them weak or sympathetic either. Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 is a solid sequel, but it suffers from making us feel sorry for Alfred Molina's Doctor Octopus. And, don't get us started on Arnold Schwarzenegger's depressed Mr. Freeze in Batman &amp; Robin.
Just Don't Find Too Many
It sounds great… now that the superhero has been established; let's start throwing a bunch of his comic book foils at him in the movies. After all, most superheroes have a whole group of villains that they've been doing battle with for years. Only, it never works that way. Diverting attention away from one main bad guy just muddles the plot… and it's already touch-and-go whether there's enough of that anyway. Going the Spider-Man 3 route where it was Green Goblin and Sandman and Venom gets confusing and feels lazy. It doesn't mean that there can't be other bad guys around, especially when we're talking about seminal characters like Lex Luthor, we just need to have one at the center that leads us into a fitting (and ginormous) climactic battle.
Mo' Superheroes, Mo' Better
It's not an accident that The Avengers was such a smash… we like to see the costumed crowd playing together. It reminds us of the greatest part of comic books where we could imagine all of these spectacular personalities in a universe where they would sometimes collide. That's the same reason that X-Men fans screamed and shouted when fan favorites like The Beast and Gambit were slow to join the fun (if they ever got to at all) in the Bryan Singer films. It doesn't even have to be characters that are household names. The average person didn't know Black Widow before Iron Man 2 or Falcon before Captain America: The Winter Soldier… but the people that do are the ones that help create a buzz for the movie.
Even a bad sequel, can provide at least a few minutes of interest with a crossover… like The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. The Marvel diehards that saw that one did so just to see Mr. Fantastic and The Thing interact with the metallic former Galactus henchman… and the fact that the movie actually made money proves the point. Whether they like the choice of Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight in Zack Snyder's Batman vs. Superman, you can bet that superhero fans everywhere are still going to line up to see the DC Comics' titans go at it. (And, ok, to see Gal Gadot in her Wonder Woman outfit.)
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YouTube/FOX/Warner Bros. Pictures via Everett Collection
Ever since Marvel kicked off the shared universe trend two years ago, movie studios have been rushing to create their own film franchises based on superheroes. Sony has Spider-Man, Fox has the X-Men, and Warner Bros. jumped on the bandwagon with last year’s Man of Steel. Now, not only are they planning a sequel (Batman vs. Superman, which released its first images yesterday) but a Justice League movie as well. However, DC already has success on TV with The CW’s Arrow, which is getting a spinoff: The Flash. Plus Fox is debuting Gotham in the fall and NBC will be launching Constantine. With all these DC superheroes in film and TV, should they try to create a cohesive shared universe?
Marvel Studios has been testing the waters of the shared universe with their cinematic universe along with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and their yet-to-be released Netflix shows. Although it’s working for the Disney-affiliated company, it might not be so easy for DC. The first season of Arrow was already over — and season two production had already begun — when Man of Steel hit theaters. There has, thus far, been no mention in Arrow of Superman, Metropolis, or the events that took place in Man of Steel. To weave those separate stories together in the third season of Arrow wouldn’t make sense, and would weigh down what has been a fun and entertaining superhero series.
What about Gotham or Constantine? Could they fit within the DC Cinematic Universe? Although Gotham will feature Bruce Wayne, it will be as a child, which will be a far cry from “Batfleck” in the upcoming Man of Steel sequel. Again, weaving these television shows into the timeline of DC’s film franchise would be incredibly difficult and probably detract from what these movies and TV shows could accomplish on their own.
So what about a shared DC television universe? The timelines might — and I’m seriously stressing that “might” — be able to align a bit easier, but there’s the problem of the networks. With Constantine on NBC, Gotham on Fox, and Arrow and The Flash on The CW, it would be near impossible to have crossovers between the four series.
Ultimately, creating a cohesive shared universe takes a lot of work. Remember, Marvel started constructing the MCU even before Iron Man premiered in 2008. Warner Bros. and DC, along with Fox and NBC on the TV front, are trying to capitalize on superheroes while they’re the big thing in pop culture; they don’t have time to spend four or five years building a universe.
For that reason, it would be best avoid a shared universe and so that each network and studio could focus on their own projects and make them the best they can be. Similar to how Marvel Studios has the Avengers, Fox has the X-Men, and Sony has Spider-Man. It’s good for fans because we’re getting more superhero movies and TV shows than we know what to do with.
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